Examples

For all such effects of acetylcholine, directly analogous to those which Loewi discovered in relation to the heart vagus, were covered by what I had termed the "muscarine" action of acetylcholine, and were all very readily suppressed by atropine.

It could be identified by its characteristic instability, and by the fact that its activity matched the same known concentration of acerylcholine in a series of different physiological tests, covering both "muscarine" and "nicotine" actions.

Through what I termed its "muscarine" action, it reproduced at the periphery all the effects of parasympathetic nerves, with a fidelity which, as I indicated, was comparable to that with which adrenaline had been shown, some ten years earlier, to reproduce those of true sympathetic nerves.

The meat of the story revolves around the following thesis statement: "It may well be the case that it was the cultivation of psychotropic substances rather than foodstuffs that prompted the initial development of agriculture, while fungal hallucinogens like psilocybin and muscarine were probably the catalyst responsible for the initial development of human self-consciousness."

A local shaman would eat the mushroom, using his body to filter out the poisonous muscarine; its mood-altering compounds were preserved in his urine, which was then ritually consumed by other Koryac and also some of the more favored reindeer.

In looking for a substance with both these characteristics, I found that out of a series of the known vagomimetic substances, muscarine, piloearpin, choline, and acetylcholine, only the last-named possessed them7.